Mysti Berry has been playing local celebrity instead of writing this week: She was lucky enough to read along with Walter Mosley and other talented Bay Area writers at Noir at the Bar (photo below), and joined the MWA as they helped raised money for KQED and public broadcasting on last Tuesday’s pledge drive (another photo, below). This weekend, it's all writing, she promises!

Mysti (woman in black, next to man in red) and the Noir at the Bar bunch

Mysti (woman in blue, second from right) and the MWA contingent at the KQED fundraiser

Margaret Lucke will be at the Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley on Sunday -- at the Sisters in Crime booth in the morning and the Romance Writers of America booth in the afternoon, while Ann Parker will be hanging out at the Mystery Writers of America booth in the early afternoon.

Public Speaking

So, how do you feel about public speaking? Love it? Hate it? Endure it? Join us this week when the LadyKillers discuss and offer tips on this task that many fear more than death (read this Psychology Today article for more insight).

April 30, 2017

Jean Rabe's The Dead of Winter, her first Piper Blackwell mystery, has just been released as an audio book. Jean says the narrator is soooooooooo good. Check it out here.

Priscilla Royal will be visiting the Rossmoor mystery book club on May 1 at 4pm. She also took a break from The Draft to watch another form of draft: NFL. Cheese and baguette were present to celebrate the occasion.

Ann Parker says the 100-pg mark for the unnamed Book #6 of the Silver Rush Series is in sight...

THE ROAD TO GETTING PUBLISHED

Is it a "climb every mountain and ford every stream" process, with rejections papering the walls? Or is it an easy cruise down the freeway, a combination of connections, luck, and being in the right place at the right time with the right manuscript?

Come on by this week and we'll provide our views of the challenges to getting a foot in the door of the publishing world...

April 02, 2017

Camille Minichino re-released her stand alone “Killer in the Cloister” on smash words.com. A Lenten read, she says. And she’s almost ready to upload a flash fiction piece featuring a sniper, one of her favorite jobs for a character.

Priscilla Royal is pulling her hair out over getting adequate number of words for first part of book to send editor. She has cancelled all hair appointments for next six months, which means she now has more time to find enough words to reach minimum word limit...

Ellen Kirschman is giving a presentation to the International Association of Women Police on Tuesday. Her topic is Getting Through Troubled Times. You only need to read the newspaper to know these are tough times to be a cop.

Jean Raab turned over her second Piper Blackwell book to her publisher. This one is called: The Dead of Night...and that would be because her young sheriff discovers somebody dead at night! Her first Piper Blackwell book, The Dead of Winter, is being released soon as an audio book.

Mar Preston is frantically trying to learn playscript software to adapt a short story to a 10-minute skit for our local theater group. Her most recent book The Most Dangerous Species is available as an audible edition. We’ll see how that goes.

NO FOOLIN'

Given that April 1 has just slipped out the back door, we're turning our attention to the next topic: Just Foolin' Around. No practical jokes, we promise (or maybe we don't)....

February 14, 2017

I can’t go anywhere without a book. I’m obsessed. Well, anywhere beyond a trip to Walmart or the Dollar Store or out to dinner with friends.

If a trip’s involved I need a book. In case I’m stuck in a line somewhere or I can’t sleep at night. I feel better when I have a book, a nice little paperback that fits in my fanny pack. It gives me a sense of security. Sure, I always have a notebook, in case I get an idea for a story or see something I want for future reference—an interesting name for a river, ya know.

But I gotta have a book.

And it has to be a book I buy somewhere along the way.

I have more books in my house than I will read in what’s left of my lifetime. I could easily take one of those with me on the road. But that defeats the purpose of my literary journey. I have to buy a book along the way, and it has to be something I wouldn’t normally buy, an author I’ve never read. I force myself to widen my horizons.

During one trip I purchased George R. R. Martin’s Fevre Dream. He was in Louisville, and he signed the book for me, and we had a lovely chat. I own more than a few Martin novels now.

It’s also how I discovered Ed McBain and my love of reading—and now writing—police procedurals. Back in the day I read only science fiction and fantasy and I worked for a company that produced role-playing games. I was at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, flying to a game convention where I was to give lectures and such. I didn’t have a book with me and the flight was delayed. I strolled into one of the bookstores—O’Hare has a few—and decided I’d try something different. An Ed McBain 87th Precinct novel looked interesting. They didn’t have any fantasy or SF on the rack that caught my eye. I devoured it on the plane, and when I got back to Wisconsin I started buying more Ed McBains, relying on eBay to get the older out-of-print books. I even emailed him, and he graciously emailed me back. How awesome was it to correspond with Ed McBain? He told me he’d written one SF book, and that the genre was too difficult for him, so he stuck with crime novels. I have that SF book—Tomorrow and Tomorrow—and I’ve not read it yet. It’s one of my treasures.

I found Preston & Child at a different airport. It was their first book, Relic. I probably have all the Pendergast novels now, though not read in any particular order.

At a convention in Wisconsin I met Michael Connelly and bought The Black Echo. I’ve got all the Bosch books now. ALL OF THEM.

At a convention in Nashville, I bought books by Kevin O’Brien and Jaden Terrell…and have since purchased more from these talented wordsmiths.

Traveling is hazardous, as it can be expensive…books, they are not cheap, ya know…and they lead to buying more books and more books and…

There are other hazards: buying a bad book and being forced to read it because you’re on an airplane and have nothing else to do. You thought it would be good. You wanted it to be good. The blurbs on the back promised it would be good. The cover looked good. And yet it is abysmal. And yet you have to read it because you bought it and because you’re in the air. But you can leave it on your seat, unfinished, when you get off the plane…waiting there for some poor soul to pick it up.

Bentley Little writes horror; and I told myself I needed to read horror, expand my horizons. After all, I’d loved Fevre Dream, right? And I sometimes picked up a Stephen King. A Bentley Little book enticed me when I was in the Denver airport. I bought it, and was drawn in—

—until it got really, really, really squishy. So it isn’t fair for me to say his novels are abysmal. Some people like an inordinate amount of squish. I tried him a second time when I was in an airport in Oklahoma. I’d forgotten until I got into the book, then looked to see “other titles by,” that I’d previously tasted his prose. Oh, this one might be different, I thought. Again, the writing was shiny…until it got really, really, really squishy. Too graphic for my tastes. (Odd, eh, as I can dish out graphic violence.) Again, I left it on the plane, unfinished. I hope some later traveler enjoyed it.

I’m rambling. Hey, isn’t that what you do when you travel…ramble down the road?

My travels have broadened my taste in fiction, introduced me to authors I would not have otherwise considered…and maybe they led me here, to write mystery books. Without my travels I might not have strayed from buying strictly SF and fantasy. I certainly encourage others to pick up a new author on their jaunts.

I’ve a few out of state trips planned this year. Wonder what new books and authors I will discover along the way?

Jean Rabe will be participating in Mystery-Thriller Week that kicks off Monday. She's doing a couple of Facebook chats offering writerly advice and some guest blogs. Here's the link: https://mysterythrillerweek.com/

Mar Preston has received a tempting offer to write for a TV series in development. Most of us who have been around for a while know how precarious pinning your hopes on an offer like this can be. Still, it’s flattering. She knows nothing about writing for TV.

Priscilla Royal stopped by the Poisoned Pen Press for a nostalgia visit of their old offices before they move to new digs above The Poisoned Pen Bookstore. A press above a bookstore? How appropriate is that? She also noted that the hotel where she stayed had the same toilet she now has after the Great Bathroom Demolition. Lest you think this is TMI, she is wondering if that is an omen she will open an inn....

February 05, 2017

Priscilla Royal is finally reaching the end of the Great Bathroom Demolition Project. She thinks... She hopes....Meanwhile....

On Saturday, Feb 11, from noon to one, she will be at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale AZ for a signing. Her 13th medieval mystery, The Proud Sinner, will be "official" on the 7th as well as a special reissue of her first book, Wine of Violence, which features a new introduction by Sharon Kay Penman.

Ellen Kirschman is heading to Oregon to co-lead a workshop for the International Council of Police Chaplains.

Michael Black busy teaching his Creative Writing Class at a local junior college and busy working on projects. He's also writing the program for the Public Safety Writers Association conference, which will be in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 13-16 at the Orleans Hotel and Casino. It's open to anyone who likes to write, and offers a variety of panels on writing as well as lots of information on police, fire, and military subjects. It's a great place to research your next novel.

LadyKiller alumna Rita Lakin, awakening from a long snooze, is writing a new novel for the Gladdy Gold Getting Old is Murder series. Since she thought the last one was the very last, she entitled it, Getting Old Can Kill You. So now she has to work backward: Getting Old Can Hurt You.

NEXT WEEK, "Read All About It" and something special on Wednesday....

The topic next week is "Read All About It: Plots from the News." But then, on Wednesday, we've got something special planned....

On Wednesday, LadyKiller extraordinaire Camille Minichino will have a special blog post on "irritating reads," in other words, those things some authors do (! no names !) that just plain "tick her off." The LadyKillers as a whole will chime in in the Comments section with their own pet peeves, and we encourage you to drop on by and do the same!

January 18, 2017

I left after high school, heading to college, then to my first newspaper job and my second newspaper job, and a job with a famous game company and then freelance to write novels, moving to a new town or two each time. I’ve lived in ten places so far.

“Home” was being five years old, a passenger in my mother’s car when she pulled in the driveway one night and ran over my dog.

Home was summer days running through fields and climbing trees, building “forts,” and burying a treasure cache of favorite marbles in a tin that I could never find again. It was nights staying in my bedroom so I wouldn’t see my mother drink. Home was where I learned to love science fiction…I read a lot of it my bedroom.

Home was band and choir competitions and speech meets; gaining trophies and ribbons long-since tossed away; Friday night football games and marching at halftime; slaying butterflies for sophomore biology’s required insect collection; riding my bicycle to the Baptist church; working as a carhop; giving up on trying to roller skate; and collecting comic books.

Home was watching my father’s first heart attack.

I made frequent visits home when my mother had aplastic anemia and was often hospitalized. My final trip home was after she died and I sold her house.

I might be able to go home physically…in the sense of driving into town and parking outside the house I grew up in. But that “home” is long gone; it’s only thick memories. The used bookstores I used to frequent closed a while ago. Most of my friends fled to distant states; those who stayed changed with the years. The restaurants are different, the high school band has a new sound, the river looks the same but the bridge over it was upgraded when I wasn’t looking, and the park along the bank has vanished, replaced with a parking lot.

Home was the place that built me and at the same time knocked me down.

I go “home” only on the page. I retreat there sometimes when I’m writing, culling characters from my past, regurgitating descriptions of stores with tin ceilings and creaky wooden floors that hang in my brain like cobwebs too high for the broom to reach. The feel of the metal monkey bars, the sound of the Baptist church’s bell, the smell of the creek behind the 4-H grounds, the curl of my little dog’s tail.

“It’s your fault,” she told me. I was sitting in the seat of the old Chevy, wearing a plaid red dress, black shoes, and white socks with lace trim. She sewed a lot and had made the dress for me. “If you hadn’t wanted to stay later at your grandparents, the dog wouldn’t have been out.”

January 08, 2017

Camille Minichino has been campaigning vigorously for the position of Secretary of the NorCal chapter of Mystery Writers of America. The nail-biting period will be over soon when the results come in this month.

Mar Preston has been invited to the Public Safety Writers Association Conference in Las Vegas to speak on the subject of editing crime fiction in the pre-conference workshop as well as critique manuscripts. She will also give a presentation during the July Conference on editing. She is very flattered and a bit breathless.

Ellen Kirschman is under deadline to finish the second edition of I LOVE A COP. She has a new work plan for 2017. Write from 8 to noon. Set the timer to move 5 minutes every hour. No email, bubble spinner or FB until the afternoon. Can she do it? Place your bets.

Last week, our crew came up with their offerings of favorite books of 2016, and this coming week we continue with our second shift of LadyKiller bloggers. Drop on by and offer up your recommendations as well. We'd love to hear what books rose to the top of your personal Top 10 for the year!